Latest Education Week survey ranks R.I. 13th in nation, with C-plus

Thursday

Jan 8, 2015 at 10:01 PM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island earned a C-plus on the latest Education Week survey, ranking 13th in the United States on a series of academic indicators but trailing behind all but one New England state.

Linda Borg Journal Staff Writer @lborgprojocom

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Rhode Island earned a C-plus on the latest Education Week survey, ranking 13th in the United States on a series of academic indicators but trailing behind all but one New England state, Maine.

The report, called Quality Counts, looks at a slew of data, from employment to family income, student achievement to high school graduation rates, preschool enrollment to adult education attainment. Education Week is a national publication that covers every aspect of public education.

For the eighth consecutive year, Massachusetts finished first in the nation, with a score of B. New Hampshire and Connecticut also lead the pack.

Rhode Island is seventh in the United States on how much it spends on education, earning a B-plus along with Connecticut and four other states.

Elliot Krieger, spokesman for state Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, said the agency is pleased with the state’s latest ranking, noting that Rhode Island has moved up from 31st in 2011. The nation as a whole was given a grade of C, down from C-plus.

Both Education Week and Krieger said, however, that the magazine has changed the indicators covered by the report.

Several measures drag down Rhode Island’s overall ranking.

They are areas where the state’s struggling economy has hurt the state’s status. With an unemployment rate of 7.1 percent, the fourth-highest in the nation, Rhode Island ranks 48th in the nation in terms of the number of adults working full-time and year-round.

“Some of these things are not education-related but they are state-related,” Krieger said. “People should see this report as a report about the state, not just about education.”

Rhode Island also has a larger percentage of children whose parents are not proficient in English, which affects student achievement.

The Ocean State also fares poorly on the percent of children enrolled in preschool and kindergarten. The state ranks 48th in terms of the number of eligible children enrolled in kindergarten and 41st with regard to the number of students attending full-day kindergarten.

Krieger said the Education Department recognizes that the state has lagged the rest of the nation with respect to early childhood education but said the department is putting a lot of resources into this issue.

“We are definitely moving to change this,” Krieger said. “This is a priority for us.”

Last month, Rhode Island received $2.3 million in federal money to expand pre-kindergarten programs in the state’s neediest communities, with the promise of a total of $19 million over four years.

Rhode Island was one of only nine states to receive a $50-million federal Race to the Top Early Learning grant, a majority of which went toward improving the quality of preschools and childcare centers.

Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Rhode Island Kids Count, said she was surprised by Rhode Island’s poor showing with respect to enrollments in all-day kindergarten.

Education Week reported that almost 67 percent of children attend full-day kindergarten, ranking Rhode Island near the bottom. But Bryant said all but seven of Rhode Island’s school districts offer full-day kindergarten.

“We have a lot of momentum on full-day kindergarten,” she said. “More districts are coming on board.”

Rhode Island also gets credit for improving student performance in fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading. Rhode Island ranks sixth in the nation for its gains in eighth-grade math and tenth on fourth-grade math.

But the achievement gaps between poor and more affluent children continue to bedevil the state. Rhode Island is ranked 48th on the gaps in achievement for fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math.

The report recognizes “the urgency of closing achievement gaps,” Burke Bryant said. “Closing those gaps will make a tremendous difference in ensuring our state has an educated work force.”

“We’re above the national average on the NAEP tests,” Krieger said. “The report recognizes the improvements we’ve made in math and reading. The poverty gap is still quite large and that concerns us.”

Education Week uses scores from the National Assessment for Education Progress, or NAEP, a test taken by students nationwide.